


What heart heard of, ghost guessed

by linman



Category: Oxford History Department - Connie Willis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-31
Updated: 2010-12-31
Packaged: 2017-10-14 06:45:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/146518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linman/pseuds/linman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sneaking out to go to a funeral is just Colin's style.  Set after the end of <i>Doomsday Book</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What heart heard of, ghost guessed

After the service Colin threaded his way between the people shuffling out of the chapel, glancing this way and that. He waited impatiently for a clutch of older women to clear the aisle so he could move up the nave; two of them were still sniffing damply into tissues and all of them were talking with such great animation that they didn’t see him standing taut before them like a bow on a string.

“It was lovely,” one of them said, “and so poignant. After all, some of them don’t even have any mourners left—”

“Pat, have you got another tissue?”

“And the young ones, poor things, they don’t remember what it was like forty years ago—”

Pat turned to get at her handbag, and Colin took his chance to sidle through the gap. He was clear of them, and the rest of the people in the aisle would be easy to dodge. Dodging was an art and one which Colin enjoyed cultivating. Another seven rows up and he would reach Dunworthy, the back of whose head he had picked out during the service—that is, if he hadn’t left.

He hadn’t. He was still sitting there at the end of the pew. Colin could see the curved handle of his cane, resting against the hymnal rack, unmoved since the beginning of the service. Dunworthy had not moved either. He sat still with his head bowed. If Colin had had any idea of hailing him at this point, he would have abandoned it.

He slipped around two students who were discussing not the service or the epidemic but the wanton cruelty of their chemistry tutor, and dodged into the pew behind Dunworthy, who did not raise his head though surely he had heard Colin coming. He considered briefly climbing over or crawling under the pew to sit down next to him, but caught sight of a man in clericals frowning thoughtfully at him and thought better of it. He went round to the end of his pew, edged into the tiny space between it and the wall, and came back along Dunworthy’s pew, by which time the minister had moved along the chancel and out of sight.

He sat down with relative quietness next to Dunworthy and waited for him to look up. It looked like it was going to be a long wait.

Dunworthy had his hand over his face, but not to hide the tears still sliding down his cheek. He was a tidy crier: he made no sound, not a sob or a sniffle, and only once did he flinch against an inward spasm that shook him. As the chapel cleared, a don whose name Colin had forgotten approached them, saw the situation, and went away without a word. There were fewer and fewer people about, and no authority figures to discourage Colin from drawing his feet up onto the seat and linking his arms around his knees.

Dunworthy looked grey and old, older than he ought to; whether this was from illness or grief, or both, it was hard to tell. At the service they had read out the names of the dead, pausing lightly with respect after each one, and Colin had watched Dunworthy’s head fall lower name by name. Now that all the action was over, there was nothing left to do but notice the grief. To be alone.

There were tears rising, brimming high in Colin’s eyes, but he held very still until they were swallowed down. Colin was _not_ a tidy crier, and this was not a good place to cry untidily.

Presently Dunworthy lifted his head and cleared his throat gently. He sniffed and drew a long raspy breath, and looked over at Colin. A faint frown appeared between his brows when he took in Colin’s feet on the pew; Colin put them down to the floor and shifted his seat, even as he knew Dunworthy wouldn’t say anything about it.

What Dunworthy did say, however, was more annoying. “Is someone coming to get you?” He reached under his robes, pulled out a handkerchief and began mopping gently at his face.

“I’m being taken care of,” Colin said, resentfully.

“No doubt.” Dunworthy turned over his handkerchief, against the fold, and wiped under his nose, then put the handkerchief away, picked up his glasses from his lap and threaded them on. He cleared his throat again. “What I fancy,” he said, “is a cup of tea. Would you care for one?” He gave Colin a glance that held a familiar faint glint of humor, which Colin found both reassuring and oddly painful.

“Okay,” he said.

He watched Dunworthy haul himself to his feet with the help of the pew in front of them and reach for his cane. He was walking straight now, not bent over and unsturdy, but the cane touched the floor at each step with something more than idleness. Colin walked next to him, slowing his steps to match.

Outside the chapel they were met with a blast of inhospitable wind: Colin waited for Dunworthy to observe that his jacket was unstripped, so that he could riposte with the fact that Dunworthy had not even brought a coat but trusted to the inadequate protection of an Oxford gown against the weather. Dunworthy said nothing, however, but made his careful way down the steps and along the now-familiar path to his rooms.

Someone had cleaned Dunworthy’s living quarters, probably, Colin thought, not Dunworthy himself—he couldn’t imagine Dunworthy having the energy to put all the Christmas things away and clean the rugs and wash every dish in the place, especially when Dunworthy’s desk was still a litter of printouts and books and transcripts from historians’ reports. If anything, Dunworthy’s movements confirmed this theory: he had left the cane at the door and was now moving about the kitchen with great deliberation. Making a cup of tea was just about his limit right now.

Colin knew where things were, so he left his jacket draped sprawlingly over one of the kitchen table chairs and made the toast. He set the table, put down the toast, and got out the jam, just as Dunworthy turned round with the full teapot to set on the table. Colin slid into his seat and looked up at him with his best not-very-innocent innocent look.

There was the flash of humor again, and Colin still hadn’t figured out why it was painful to see Dunworthy looking at him that way. He watched as Dunworthy lowered himself heavily into his seat at the table and poured them both cups of tea. He took a piece of toast and spread jam on it; Colin did the same. There didn’t seem like anything to say, so they didn’t say it.

Halfway down his cup of tea Colin finally ventured: “How’s Kivrin?”

The question didn’t seem to surprise Dunworthy. “Still in hospital,” he said. “Though getting impatient with it by now, which is as good a sign as any, I suppose.” His gaze was fixed inward, and Colin thought he must be miles and hundreds of years away.

Colin thought a hospital stay was a small price to pay for the privilege of being an historian: but against this he had to set the faces of the dead he had seen in 1349. They had all died like that, all alone. Dunworthy ought to have been happy, or at least relieved, to get Kivrin back; but looking at his face now, Colin was beginning to wonder about that price. Things would always be the same, he thought; things would never be the same again. It was a, what did you call it, a paradox, though not the scientific kind that you read about in stories where the man realizes that he’s killed his grandfather just before he’s vaporized in a cloud of dust.

Dunworthy’s gaze returned to the present and rested, inexorably, on him. “So,” he said. “When do you suppose your mother will have read your note? Or did you even leave one?”

Blast: was he really that transparent? “She’s probably seen it by now,” he said, “and it’s not a note. I recorded her a message.”

“Set to a two-hour delay?” Dunworthy’s voice was mild but triumphant. It was really indecent of him, Colin thought.

“Three. I had to leave time for delays on the tube.”

“Ah. Yes.” Dunworthy poured himself another cup. “Were there any?”

“No.”

“Mm.” Dunworthy took a sip of his tea and regarded Colin thoughtfully over his glass-rims. “Plenty of time to get into trouble before the service,” he said.

“Which I didn’t,” Colin shot back.

“Which may or may not be borne out,” Dunworthy said. “A check with the various authorities may be in order.”

“I’m not a delinquent!” Colin said hotly. “And if people are going to make a fuss, why do they have to be beside the point? I can take care of myself. I _do_ take care of myself. I don’t need—” He broke off, not too angry to know that to finish that sentence would be to pass the point of no return.

Not that Dunworthy would fail to seize on it. “Don’t need?” he repeated gently. His incisive eyes met Colin’s, and as Colin lifted his chin defiantly, a brief smile crossed the older man’s face. Suddenly Colin knew why that look of Dunworthy’s was painful: Dunworthy was his friend—a friend who understood him—and Colin had grown used to doing without either.

And that was the end of it; that was it; he was done; he was about to cry very, very untidily indeed at Mr. Dunworthy’s kitchen table…but somehow it didn’t happen. The moment passed and Colin found himself gripping the edge of the table with one hand and teasing with a fork the crust of his toast with the other. In the silence of the room the fork’s tines hit the plate with a very light _tink tink tink_.

When Colin was able to swallow he put the fork down and dared a glance upward; but Dunworthy had withdrawn his gaze. He felt his pockets, then glanced at the old-fashioned dial clock on the kitchen wall. “I think,” he said, “that if you’re going to catch the tube home you’d better have a cab. The walk would be dark and unpleasant. Or,” he added, with a touch of diffidence, “you are welcome to spend the night here, if you wish.”

Colin looked out the kitchen doorway into the rest of Dunworthy’s rooms. He remembered very well what sleeping here was like, and the memories were not much pleasanter than the prospect of an evening tube ride.

As if reading his thoughts Dunworthy said: “I agree neither option has much to recommend it.”

A mixture of shame and compassion made Colin look up; after a moment he offered Dunworthy a light smile. “We could spend the night someplace interesting,” he said, “—like London in World War II.”

“I’ve been there,” Dunworthy said dryly. “It’s a bit too interesting for sleeping.”

“And I haven’t brought my pajamas,” Colin said.

Dunworthy smiled; then laughed softly. He pulled his handheld out of his jacket pocket and handed it over. “Call a cab,” he said, “and then I’ll record your mother a message.”

“Set to a three-hour delay?”

“Don’t you think two hours is sufficient?”

“I want to beat the message home.”

“Then I suggest you act promptly,” Dunworthy said.

Colin sighed. “Fine.”

Dunworthy rose, still smiling, to clear the table, as Colin searched the handheld’s menu for the taxi service.


End file.
